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-Monetary policy operates in a different environment than it did a decade ago. Financial market innovations have eroded the distinctions among monetary assets, making the definition of money increasingly arbitrary. Deregulation of interest rates and banking activity is changing the behavior of the monetary aggregates, as banks pay interest on monetary assets and nonbanks offer monetary-like assets. And globalization of markets has increased the international effects of domestic policy through trade accounts and exchange rates. The evolution in world financial aiid goods markets raises a number of questions about monetary policy. .What should be the long-run goal of monetary policy? What short-run procedures should. monetary policy adopt to achieve this goal? How should monetary policy respond to trade imbalances and volatile exchange rates? To confront such questions, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City invited distinguished central bankers, academics, and industry representatives to a symposium entitled "Monetary Policy Issues in the 1990s. " The, symposium was held August 30-September 1,1989, in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Participants generally agreed that the goal of monetary policy in the 1990s, above all else, should be price stability. The challenge to monetary policymakers will be to achieve price stability in the face of rapidly changing financial markets and competing interna-